
A genealogical mystery straight out of 1998. Scour the early Internet for clues, uncover hidden connections, and piece together the family tree behind the secretive Roottree Corporation.
Modeled estimate, not a reported figure. How we estimate →
Media

About
The year is 1998. A private jet belonging to the Roottree Corporation has crashed. On it were the Roottree Sisters and their parents. Combined, they were worth over a billion dollars.
Now, due to the eccentricities of their great-great-grandfather Elias, their money must be redistributed to the rest of the family. But who's actually a BLOOD RELATIVE? That's where you come in.
Armed only with the power of your mighty dial-up modem, you'll scour for photos, books, articles and other evidence. Then, you'll make connections and deductions based on the family relationships you uncover. With every spot on the tree you fill in correctly, the names and photos left in your possession will have fewer and fewer places to go — but the evidence will also be harder and more obscure to find.
Can you put together the final pieces of the puzzle?
The Acclaimed Armchair Detective Game, Re-imagined on Steam
The Roottrees are Dead was originally created for the Global Game Jam 2023 and released as a free browser game. It was beloved by many for its clever puzzles, retro computing interface and novel world-building. The Steam version is the same great game, but enhanced in many ways:
Hand-drawn illustrations from acclaimed board game artist Henning Ludvigsen.
A 3D living-room perspective that ties together all the unique puzzle systems
An enhanced user interface with many quality of life improvements to make your mystery solving easier to use and more intuitive
Remastered music and sound effects, with fully voiced cinematics.
A handful of Easter eggs and little touches for those who can't get enough of the late ‘90s charm
Includes "Roottreemania", a brand new mystery
Find out what happens to the Roottree family following the events of the base game.
A whole new family tree to complete!
Discover the scandals, lies, and infidelities that took place behind the scenes of America's largest maple candy empire.
Genres
Stats
All-time low is the lowest price we've recorded for this game since we started tracking it.
Languages: English*, French, German, Spanish - Latin America, Simplified Chinese*, Portuguese - Brazil, Italian*languages with full audio support
Engagement
Hours played at review time, across 165 reviews with recorded playtime.
Reviews
Themes across 163 recent reviews and how positive each mention is. A keyword signal, not full sentiment analysis.
positive critical· bar length = how often the theme comes up
Reviews
As a genealogy nerd, this game is perfect!
Un excellent jeu de détective. C'est une sorte de variante d'Obra Dinn où il faut remplir un arbre généalogique à l'aide de recherche sur un internet fictif. Ca devient très vite addictif vu le nombre d'individus à trouver. On se perd bien souvent dans des trous de lapins tellement le jeu dissimule bien certains indices. La première partie du jeu est vraiment bien ficelée et révèle une histoire cohérente et un plotwist qui à eu le mérite de me surprendre. La deuxième partie est très bonne mais aussi très difficile lorsqu'il s'agit de connecter toutes les théories et de démêler le vrai du faux. Le jeu aime vraiment nous lancer sur la mauvaise voie il faut faire beaucoup de recoupement pour tomber sur la bonne déduction. Heureusement, il y a un système d'indice super bien fait qui vous met sur la piste sans trop vous révéler la marche à suivre. Sachant le nombre de possibilités qu'on a au niveau de la recherche, c'est vraiment salvateur pour la seconde moitié du jeu. En tout cas, j'ai vraiment pas vu le temps passer sur la 20aine d'heure qu'il m a fallu pour le finir. Je recommande The Roottrees are Dead à tous les amateurs de jeux d'énigme tels que Blue Prince, Obra Dinn ou encore Golden Idol. Ah oui, la traduction est excellente donc pas de barrière de langue!
Of course if you love Obra Dinn, this game's style is up your alley. I do also think the setting should be highlighted as well, though, for those who'd find value in looking behind the facade of retro Americana. That's not to say it's a particularly strong critique of that time, but it highlights the differences in truth between personal and public narratives, and how truth shifts over time, in a way that allows it to stand out in the genre. I also really appreciate the experience of trawling the early internet, replicated with just enough QOL improvements to remind you why you spent your childhood on a computer.
令人惊讶的不仅仅是关键词谜题与多样的信息源编织而成的奇思妙想的信息之网,还有本地化大佬对措辞的精心推敲与翻译(尤其是歌词韵脚和大量谐音翻译都非常),设计师对解谜以外游戏节奏与引导结构的精心设计: 鲁特里三姐妹起步的家族树规则和资料里的关键词挑战,一小步一小步诱导玩家学会多途径查询以及借助文章关键词进行链式与网式搜索。 从新手阶段推广到标记的核心人物,再外推到整棵大树,以及最终谜题的信封,整个游戏长线目标切割得清晰而不令人生畏。 每3-5个成功结果就上一次锁和收集若干结果后局外故事逐步推进,又给了玩家鲜明的小节点和阶段节点,提供推理正确的情绪反馈与收益反馈(缩小可选项,带来新线索)。大约每40分钟有1节点,现有的整个节奏调到了一个相对舒适的地步。 此外,设计师提供了复制,快速创建与整理笔记,笔记超链,快速检索等功能非常完善的笔记系统,使用舒适且可靠,契合了玩家对大量线索进行整合的基本需要。 我想这种温和的解谜并不会适合所有人的胃口,但它确实是一部解谜游戏的精品之作。
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i love this game my bf bought me it
3.5/5。 和奥伯拉丁差异还是很大的,填名字和图片是很类似,但实际体验就差很多。 笔记的功能还是不错的,如果笔记本身可以搜索就更好了。 推理的手法比较单一,果然推理少了凶杀案矛盾冲突就少了很多,吸引力也低很多。
适合焦虑且无聊的时候玩,可以一坐一下午的时候玩,因为烧脑的时候就没心情想别的了。很讲究连贯性,上手也很轻松。 我是二周目花了大概五个小时,在电竞酒店玩完的。喜欢推理类的真的可以玩玩,因为信息量比较大,而且比较琐碎,所以比较考验记忆力和理解能力(比如家族姓氏........确实因为文化差异 说明书写的跟绕口令一样) 我自己推理的结局是比较阴暗的,因为小说原文是“扭曲的双胞胎”,以为其中牵扯了埃利亚斯家族男性对萨姆的x侵害之类,包括ak工人和小埃利一起住在农场养育萨姆,原文描述他们是“铁杆单身汉”。起初我以为是他们“共享”萨姆,后来结局委托人解释是一对同性恋夫夫。可能其中也有文化差异吧,或者是为了过审?因为似乎游戏里小说和人物对白显得更加严肃沉郁。 鲁特里狂热我最近还没时间玩,听说也非常混乱啊,期待下一个无所事事的下午!XD
八卦版奥博拉丁,有意思,最喜欢格温和加兰德了,他们都做了一般人都做不到的事,夯爆了 就是有一些联想真的很跳出框架,很不容易想到,比如那个什么全美XX,要想到迈阿密XX,说是很合理毕竟全美肯定包含迈阿密,但一般谁会往这里想唉
Definitely scratches the Obra Dinn urge, and the keyboard sounds are great imo.
Related
Related
Trends
Modeled estimate over time, reconstructed from Steam's monthly review histogram.
Engagement
DAU/MAU are modeled from peak concurrent players (≈×8 and ×28) — Steam publishes no active-user counts, so treat these as rough estimates, not reported figures.
Audience
Estimated from the language of this game's reviews — a proxy for where players are, not official Steam demographics.
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